David Petraeus Hub

You've probably heard by now that CIA director David Petraeus resigned yesterday after an FBI investigation into his biographer, Paula Broadwell, revealed the general had an extramarital affair.

Rachel Maddow of course discussed this last night, bringing on both the reporter who broke the story, Andrea Mitchell, and NBC News' Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel to discuss the fallout.

One interesting thing Engel passed on is the way one former and one current CIA employee explained the agency's feelings toward outsider Petraeus, the four-star general who commanded our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and how those feelings may have impacted this story: they would have had to bring the FBI in to investigate Broadwell and Petraeus.

"[Petraeus] actually wasn't very popular in certain circles inside the CIA," said Engel, before explaining that people really didn't like the general. "The CIA is a bit of an old fashioned club. They like it if you come up the ranks."

"One person at the CIA and one person formerly at the CIA put it to me this way, 'The CIA would have to ask the FBI to look into emails that were suspicious'," he says toward the end of the video AFTER THE JUMP.

"Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in Afghanistan, said the burning of Islam's holy books "could cause significant problems" for American troops overseas. 'It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort in Afghanistan,' Petraeus said in a statement issued Monday. With about 120,000 U.S. and NATO-led troops still battling al Qaeda and its allies in the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban movement, Petraeus warned that burning Qurans 'is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems -- not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community.' Petraeus said he was concerned by the political repercussions of the church's plan. 'Even the rumor that it might take place has sparked demonstrations such as the one that took place in Kabul yesterday,' he said. 'Were the actual burning to take place, the safety of our soldiers and civilians would be put in jeopardy and accomplishment of the mission would be made more difficult.' He said extremists would use images of burning Qurans to inflame public opinion and incite violence."